Brian Eno Quotes

I have surrounded myself with very smart people.

Just once in a while let us exalt the importance of ideas and information.

I like the facts. I find them interesting.

I am always up to steal secrets from smart people.

As a general rule, the most successful man in life is the man who has the best information.

The difference between ignorant and educated people is that the latter know more facts. But that has nothing to do with whether they are stupid or intelligent.

I suggest that an education and reading and facts aren't bad things on which to ponder a few notions.

The main message of 'Smarter Than You Think' is an attempt to look at the productively new and interesting ways that we have begun to learn about the world, to think about what we found, and to mull it over and argue about it with other people as we use technology.

People call to keep me abreast of what's going on.

I tell everyone I interact with what I'm working on and let them bring me anecdotes that illustrate my themes.

Connecting the dots is connecting people.

It is always important in matters of high politics to know what you do not know. Those who think they know, but are mistaken, and act upon their mistakes, are the most dangerous people to have in charge.

Facts are often complicated.

I think there's data, and then there's information that comes from data, and then there's knowledge that comes from information. And then, after knowledge, there is wisdom. I am interested in how to get from data to wisdom.

Be subtle! be subtle! and use your spies for every kind of business.

I probably complained more when I was younger. The movie industry can be frustrating but I think sometimes I could have been more helpful, approaching a film as a partnership rather than being critical of a director's ignorance. I wasn't sensitive to the fact that it's very hard to direct.

A good brain ain't diddley, if you don't have the facts.

I think I'm a reporter's editor. Being a good reporter is a specific skill, one I admire and don't possess myself - I appreciate people who know how to ask the right questions, who are excellent researchers, who know how to assemble information, and I enjoy working with them to shape their information into an article. Good reporters tend to be receptive to editing, and to a more collaborative form of writing in general, and you always end up learning more from how they work than you expect you will.

I think you just learn a lot of stuff in general about all the stuff he [Edward Snowden] released. I think there's probably a lot that we don't know. That's what is really interesting.

I think the hardest part of writing anything is getting exposition out easily, without hitting people over the head with it.

We can't, you know, use our military to make sure the planet doesn't get warmer. And so that kind of leadership, of being able to bring people together, to apply practical commonsense solutions based on facts, based on science, based on what works you know, that's been the approach I have taken consistently as a public servant. That's the kind of style that I think we need in the presidency right now.

I think at this point, there's a certain bizarre chemistry between Jamie [Hyneman] and I that we can't ignore a lot of the mechanics of, that we're quite aware of. Half of it is absolutely genuine, and half of it is us playing around with that fact.

Certainly, you know, you can always learn from some - from somebody else's - from some intelligence. I think. I hope.

Any fact becomes important when it's connected to another.

A parable: A man was examining the construction of a cathedral. He asked a stone mason what he was doing chipping the stones, and the mason replied, "I am making stones." He asked a stone carver what he was doing. "I am carving a gargoyle." And so it went, each person said in detail what they were doing. Finally he came to an old woman who was sweeping the ground. She said. "I am helping build a cathedral." ...Most of the time each person is immersed in the details of one special part of the whole and does not think of how what they are doing relates to the larger picture.